Option 1, overland by train via
Warsaw...

This is the fastest way, with
daily departures - although while rebuilding work is affecting the
Warsaw-Vilnius train service you'll need to use a bus for this section. If
you dislike long-distance buses and speed isn't critical, you may prefer the
train+ferry option using a Germany-Lithuania ferry,
described in Option 2 below.

London ► Vilnius

Step 1, travel from London St Pancras to
Warsaw Centralna by train, using any of the options shown on the
London to
Poland page. It takes just an afternoon, a night and a morning,
with comfortable sleepers and couchettes available. If
you take the option involving the Jan Kiepura Cologne to
Warsaw sleeper train, you'll have an afternoon free to explore
Warsaw when you arrive.

Train service suspended! There used to be a daily train service, leaving Warsaw Centralna at 07:20
and arriving Kaunas 16:45 and Vilnius at 18:16 the same day, with a simple
cross-platform change
of trains and track gauge at Sestokai,
see the section below. However, as from 3 September 2013 there is
currently no Warsaw-Vilnius train service at all due to track work which may last until July 2015,
see details here.
At least the work is in connection with the Rail Baltica project which will
finally see effective passenger trains between Warsaw, Vilnius, Riga and
Tallinn.
Map of Vilnius, showing railway station.

A way to minimise the bus journey
is this. Instead of staying overnight in Warsaw, spend some time
exploring Warsaw's delightful old own then take either the 17:10 or 18:45 train
from Warsaw Centralna to Bialystok arriving 20:08 or 21:45 respectively - times
very, so check times for your date of travel at
www.intercity.pl, fare
around 47 zlotys (£9, 10). Stay overnight in Bialystok. Next
morning Ecolines have a bus leaving Bialystok at around 09:20 arriving Kaunas
around 15:00 (a 'mere' 4h40 bus journey), fare around 23. Trains link
Kaunas with Vilnius regularly in as little as 1h05, fare around 5,
see details here. Update:
Unfortunately, now even the Warsaw-Bialystok trains are bustituted due to
engineering work until some time at the end of 2015!

Train option via Belarus: It's also possible to travel Warsaw-Minsk
by train, then Minsk to Vilnius by train, but the cost and inconvenience of a
Belarus visa only makes this route viable if you intend visiting Belarus anyway.

Vilnius ► London

Step 1, travel from Vilnius to Warsaw.
There used to be a
daily train service between Vilnius and Warsaw, leaving Vilnius at 11:20 and Kaunas at 13:15, arriving Warsaw Centralna
at 20:50, with an easy cross-platform change of train and track gauge at Sestokai,
see the section below. However,
there is no Vilnius-Warsaw train service at all from 3 September 2013 until
perhaps 2015 due to track work, see details here.

One way to minimise the bus
journey is this. Take a train from Vilnius to Kaunas in as little as
1h05, regular departures, fare around 5. Take the Ecolines bus from
Kaunas to Bialystok taking 4h40, fare around 23 - it leaves Kaunas at 17:00
arriving Bialystok 20:10. Stay overnight in Bialystok instead of Warsaw.
Next day, take a train from Bialystok to Warsaw Centralna - there are various
departures, for example an 07:07 arriving 10:20 or 09:07 arriving 12:30, check
times for your date of travel at
www.intercity.pl, fare
around 47 zlotys (£9, 10). You've plenty of time to connect with the
onward sleeper to Cologne and train to London. Update:
Unfortunately, now even the Bialystok-Warsaw trains are bustituted due to
engineering work until some time at the end of 2015!

This is a leisurely way to reach
Lithuania, using comfortable trains from the UK to Germany then a civilised &
comfortable DFDS Seaways ferry from Germany to Lithuania, avoiding any long distance buses.

Day 2, take a local train
from Hamburg to Kiel, these run at least hourly, journey time around 1h17.

Day 2, sail from Kiel to
Klaipeda in Lithuania with DFDS Seaways. A ferry sails 6 days a week,
departure time varies between 14:00 & 23:00 and arrival in Klaipeda next day
(day 3 from London) in the afternoon or evening roughly 22 hours later, see
www.dfdsseaways.co.uk
for ferry sailing dates, times & fares. The ferry has 2 & 4 berth cabins with
shower & toilet, plus extra-comfort Commodore Class cabins with TV &
minibar. There are restaurants and bars on board too.

Day 3 late afternoon (if your
ferry arrives early enough on that particular date) or (if it doesn't) in
the morning of day 4, take a train from
Klaipeda to Vilnius, journey time 4h45 or so. There are several departures daily,
see the Train Travel in Lithuania section below.

Vilnius & Klaipeda ► London

Day 1, sail from Klaipeda in
Lithuania to Kiel in Germany with DFDS Seaways. A ferry sails 6 days a
week, departure time varies between 15:00 & 23:00 and arrival in Klaipeda
next day (day 2) in the afternoon or evening roughly 21 hours later, see
www.dfdsseaways.co.uk
for ferry times, dates & fares. The ferry has 2 & 4 berth cabins with
shower & toilet, plus extra-comfort Commodore Class cabins with TV &
minibar. There are restaurants and bars on board too.

How much does it cost?

London to Hamburg starts at
59 with a London Spezial fare from German railways. Fares work like
air fares, varying on different dates & departures and rising as the cheaper
tickets are sold.

Hamburg to Kiel costs 22,
fixed-price, by regional train.

Kiel to Klaipeda by DFDS
ferry might typically cost around £104 with a bed in a shared cabin or £116
per person for two people travelling together sharing a 2-berth cabin.
But it depends on the season and cabin choice.

InterCity
2nd class. You'll also find a few
compartment coaches on InterCity trains, and a bistro or restaurant car...

InterCity 1st class, often available in both open-plan saloons like this and in
compartments.

3. Kiel to Klaipeda by DFDS
ferry...

Traveller Lewis Baston reports:
"We took the Friday ferry that departs at 22:00, making - if you can get the
06:50 from London to Brussels - it feasible to board the ferry on Day 1,
overnight, and arrive on Day 2 in the evening (20:00) in Klaipeda. The Klaipeda
boat leaves from Ostuferhafen, which is in an industrial area east of the fjord
on which Kiel is built. The ferries to Sweden leave from a very modern looking
port more or less across the road from Kiel Hbf but the Klaipeda dock is more
basic. The signage isn't great - if people know exactly what they are doing,
there's a number 11 bus from Hbf that gets you most of the way to Ostuferhafen,
but for the uninitiated it is a 10-15 minute taxi ride from the city centre and
station.

The ferry is of a standard type
rather than the vast mega-ferries that go on routes from Kiel to Sweden or from
Hoek van Holland to Harwich. Embarkation is smooth and uncomplicated; the
check-in building has a pizza restaurant in it. Passengers are taken to the
ferry by a shuttle bus from the terminal. The last shuttle leaves an hour before
departure.

Facilities on the ferry are
pretty good. It is Lithuanian-operated and crewed, so you do get the occasional
taste of post-Soviet customer service, but mostly it is fine and the quality of
the food and cabins is a pleasant surprise. We went 'Commodore Class' which
involves two proper beds and an outside window, looking out in the direction of
travel. The ferry was busy, with lorries packed in like sardines. There are two
bars and two restaurants (one self service canteen style and one a la carte). We
chose to book breakfast, lunch and dinner (a word of warning - if during booking
online you are offered breakfast vouchers and your room rate says it includes
breakfast DO NOT order a breakfast voucher - this differs from Stena Line's
system I think). The meals are full, hearty and Baltic-style - and very tasty
and filling, particularly if you (like me) are fond of meat and potatoes. But my
companion, whose tastes are more refined, also thought the food was good. In
retrospect, you only really need breakfast and one other meal, not two!

Arrival in Klaipeda is, as in
Kiel, in an industrial port area. There is a bus (1A) into town but its
timetable does not match up very well to the later ferries. Arriving on the
22:00 departure from Kiel you need to be lucky and on the first shuttle bus from
the ferry to the dock gate to get the bus (it does not wait for passengers,
however useful that would be!) and there aren't buses to meet the 23:00
departure from Kiel. You are more or less at the mercy of taxi drivers, although
even taxis are scarce. Booking in advance might be efficient. We paid 20 split
between four, which felt reasonable at the time as it was bucketing with rain.
The standard bus fare is LIT2.60, a good deal if you arrive earlier in the day
as the stop is just outside the dock gate and port building where outbound
passengers check in.

Until 2005 there was a direct overnight sleeper train
from Warsaw to Vilnius called the Balti 3 times a
week, but Polish Railways sadly withdrew this train. Instead,
there remains a comfortable daily daytime train linking
Warsaw with Kaunas & Vilnius, with a simple change of trains at
Sestokai on the Polish/Lithuanian frontier, plus another
easy change at Kaunas as follows:

IMPORTANT UPDATE 2015: All Warsaw-Vilnius train service is
temporarily cancelled from 3 September 2013, until at least mid-2015
probably longer. This is due to track work in Lithuania, probably in
connection with the Rail Baltica project which eventually aims to link
Warsaw, Vilnius, Riga & Tallinn with an effective standard-gauge
railway.
More info will be posted here when known.

Or you can minimise the bus journey by taking a
comfortable train from Warsaw to Bialystok, see
www.intercity.pl,
staying overnight, then taking the morning Ecolines bus from Bialystok
to Kaunas in 4h40, see
http://ecolines.net/en, then a train in
1h05 from Kaunas to Vilnius.

Warsaw ► Kaunas, Vilnius

Vilnius, Kaunas ► Warsaw

Cancelled

Cancelled

Warsaw Centralna depart:

07:20

Vilnius depart:

11:20

Sestokai arrive
(change trains):

14:57

Kaunas arrive (change trains)

12:36

Sestokai depart:

15:10

Kaunas depart:

13:15

Kaunas arrive (change trains)

16:45

Sestokai arrive (change trains):

14:52

Kaunas depart:

17:00

Sestokai depart:

15:12

Vilnius arrive:

18:16

Warsaw Centralna arrive:

20:50

At Sestokai, the
connecting train will wait if the first train runs late,
as they are designed to connect with each other.
The Warsaw-Sestokai Polish train has 1st & 2nd class
seats, but the Sestokai-Kaunas Lithuanian train is
2nd
class only, there is no 1st class. There is
no buffet or restaurant car, so bring
your own food, wine or beer and enjoy the ride!

The connection at Sestokai
is a simple same-platform interchange, as you can see
from the photo on the right. This shows the
standard-gauge Polish train just
arrived from Warsaw on the right, and the onward
Russian-gauge Lithuanian
train on the left.

This service does not
pass through any part of Belarus, it passes directly
from Poland into Lithuania.

Please check train times for your date of travel at
http://bahn.hafas.de (the English language button is
at upper right).

Are you in
the right coach?
Check the destination boards on the side of the coach
you board in Warsaw, to make sure it's one of the through cars to
Sestokai at the back of the train - coaches at the front
of the train may terminate at Suwalki, the stop before the frontier.

Changing trains at Sestokai... Taking the train from Warsaw to
Vilnius is the civilised alternative to a very long bus
journey or an avoidable flight. Photo courtesy of
Paul Markham.

How
much does it cost?

Warsaw to Vilnius

About 140 zlotys (£32 or 38) one-way. Return
tickets are available, costing less than the price of
two one-way tickets.

It's easy to buy a ticket at Warsaw Centralna station, advance reservation is not necessary.

Vilnius to Warsaw

About 84 Litas one-way (£22 or 25). Return
tickets are available, costing less than the price of
two one-way tickets.

It's easy to buy a ticket at Vilnius
station, at the friendly & English-speaking
international ticket office. Advance reservation is not necessary.

Vilnius ► Riga

Sadly, there are
now no direct Vilnius-Riga trains at
all. At least the Communists knew how to run a
railway! The Riga to Vilnius journey is now faster and more frequent by long-distance bus, see the
section below. However, if you prefer to travel by
train, no problem: You can use a daily local train
from Vilnius to Daugavpils in the evening,
stop overnight in a hotel at Daugavpils, then travel by
local train Daugavpils to Riga next morning. Being an
evening train-hotel-morning train arrangement, it's quite
time-effective even if slower than the bus.

Day 1 evening, take the once-daily
international local train from Vilnius (depart 19:50) to
Daugavpils in Latvia (arriving 22:00).
The fare is about 27. Buy a ticket at the station on the day of
travel as this train cannot be pre-booked. You can
check train times at
www.litrail.lt
(click 'EN' for English, then 'Passenger
transportation').

Day 2
morning, take a
local train leaving Daugavpils at 05:49 and arriving Riga
at 09:19, fare 7 (£6).
There's also a 17:15 from Daugavpils arriving Riga 21:22. You can check train
times & fares at
www.ldz.lv
(Click 'English' top left then 'passenger traffic').
No prior reservation required, just buy a ticket on the day at the station

Traveller Russell Goddard
went from Vilnius to Riga by train as above, then used an
onward Eurolines coach to Tallinn: "While not
unpleasant, the coach was a distinctly soulless experience,
lacking the character of the trains. The coaches are a way
of getting people from A to B with a minimum of bother,
which I'm sure is a plus in many people's books, but as
someone who travels as much for the sake of the journey
itself, I was glad I'd gone by train from Vilnius to Riga
via Daugavpils rather than taking the coach all the way from
Vilnius to Tallinn! In Tallinn itself, the bus station is
inconveniently located some distance from the city centre,
while the rail station is right on the edge of the old town
- if only it had a decent international service!"

Alternative by bus: If you'd rather travel by bus, as in
this case it is certainly more frequent and faster, there is a regular Eurolines bus
service from Vilnius to Riga, with a number of departures
daily,
fare 17-23, journey time 4½ hours, see
www.luxexpress.eu.

Vilnius ► Moscow

There are several daily sleeper trains from Vilnius to
Moscow with 2-berth sleepers & 4-berth sleepers. These trains do pass through Belarus,
so a Belarus transit visa is required. The fare is
around 50 in a 4-bed sleeper if you buy at the ticket
office. To check train times and book online in either
direction,
use the Real
Russia booking system here. Real Russia charge a
15-23% mark-up over ticket office prices, included in the
prices they show. For journeys starting in Vilnius
you'll need to have tickets sent to you (at a small extra
charge) as the e-ticket option doesn't work for departure
from Vilnius, only for departure from Moscow.

Vilnius ► St Petersburg

There is a daily overnight sleeper train from
Vilnius to St Petersburg with 2-berth & 4-berth sleepers. This train does not go through
Belarus. The fare is around 216 Litas (£56 or 65) in a 4-bed
'kupι' sleeper if you buy tickets at the station. To check
train times and book online in either direction,
use the Real Russia
booking system here. Real Russia charge a 15-23%
mark-up over ticket office prices, included in the prices
they show. Update: It looks as if this train will be discontinued
from May 2015.

The
European Rail Timetable & maps

The
European Rail Timetable (formerly the Thomas Cook European
Timetable)
has train & ferry times for every country in Europe plus
currency & climate information. It is essential
for regular European train travellers and an inspiration for
armchair travellers. Published since 1873, it had just
celebrated 140 years of publication when Thomas Cook decided
to pull the plug on their entire publishing department, but
the dedicated
ex-Thomas Cook team have set up a private venture and published the first edition of a reborn European Rail
Timetable in March 2014. You can buy it online with worldwide shipping
at
either
www.stanfords.co.uk or
www.europeanrailtimetable.eu.
More information
on what the European Rail Timetable contains.

Make
sure you take a good guidebook. For the independent traveller, this
means either the Lonely Planet or the Rough Guide. Both books provide a similarly excellent level of
cultural and historical background and practical information. You won't
regret buying one of these guides..!

Click the images to buy online at Amazon.co.uk...

◄◄
Hotel search & price comparison.

www.hotelscombined.com
checks all the main hotel booking sites at once to find the widest choice of
hotels & the cheapest seller. It was named as the World's Leading Hotel
Comparison Site at the World Travel Awards 2013 and I highly recommend it, both
to find hotels in even the smallest places and to check that another retailer
isn't selling your hotel for less!

www.booking.com
is my favourite booking site. It's really clear and you can usually book with free
cancellation and so confirm your accommodation at no risk months before train
booking opens.

Other hotel sites
worth trying...

www.tripadvisor.com
is the place to find
independent travellers' reviews of all the main hotels.

www.booking.com is my own preferred hotel booking system
(Hotels Combined being a search/comparison system). It
has a simple interface, a good selection in most countries
worldwide, useful online customer reviews of each hotel, and
decent prices, usually shown inclusive of unavoidable extras
such as taxes (a pet hate of mine is systems that show one
price, then charge you another!).

Backpacker hostels...

www.hostelbookers.com: If you're on a tight budget,
don't forget about backpacker hostels. Hostelbookers
offers online booking of cheap private rooms or dorm beds in
backpacker hostels in most
cities at rock-bottom prices.

Travel
insurance & health card...

Take out decent travel insurance, it's essential...

Never travel without proper travel insurance from a reliable insurer
with at least £1m or preferably £5m medical cover. It should also cover
loss of cash & belongings (up to a limit), and trip cancellation. An annual
multi-trip policy is usually cheapest even for just 2 or 3 trips
a year - I have an annual policy myself.
However, don't expect travel insurance to bail you out of every missed
connection, see
the advice on missed connections here. Here are some suggested insurers,
Seat61 gets a little commission if you buy through these
links, and feedback from using
insurance for rail & ferry travel is always welcome.

In
the UK, use
www.confused.com to compare prices & policy features across
major insurance companies.

Get an
EU health card, it's free...

If you're a
UK citizen travelling in Europe, you should apply for a free
European Health Insurance Card, which entitles you to free or
reduced rate health care if you become ill or get injured in
many European countries, under a reciprocal arrangement with
the NHS. This replaced the old E111 forms
as from January 2006. The EHIC card is available from
www.ehic.org.uk. It doesn't remove the need for
travel insurance, though.

Taking out an extra credit card costs nothing, but if you keep it in a different part of your luggage you
won't be left stranded if
your wallet gets stolen. In addition,
some credit cards are better for
overseas travel than others. Martin Lewis's
www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/cheap-travel-money
explains which UK credit cards have the lowest currency
exchange commission loadings when you buy something
overseas, and the lowest cash withdrawal fees when you use
an ATM abroad.

You can avoid ATM charges and expensive exchange rates with a
Caxton FX euro currency Visa Card, or their
multi-currency 'Global Traveller' Visa Card, see
www.caxtonfx.com for info.

Get an international SIM card
to save on mobile data and phone calls...

Mobile phones can cost a fortune to use abroad, and if you're
not careful you can return home to find a huge bill.
Consider
buying a global pre-paid SIM card for your mobile phone from
www.Go-Sim.com, which can slash costs by up to 85%. Go-Sim
cuts call costs in 175 countries worldwide,
and you can receive incoming calls and texts for free in 75 countries. It's pay-as-you-go, so no nasty bills
when you get home. It also allows cheap data access for laptops
& PDAs. A Go-Sim account and any credit on it doesn't
expire if it's not used between trips, unlike some
others, so a Go-Sim phone number becomes your 'global phone
number' for life.